Police, Navy investigate Great Lakes sailor's death

The death of a sailor who graduated from boot camp last weekend was under investigation Wednesday by Chicago police and Navy officials at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago.

Seaman Recruit Kenneth Leon Young Jr., 22, of Tampa was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at Norwegian American Hospital in Chicago, where he had arrived with his sister, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Chicago police opened an investigation into Young's death while awaiting results of an autopsy scheduled for Thursday, a police spokeswoman said.

Young had graduated from the Navy's nine-week boot camp Friday with orders to attend aviation ordnance apprentice technical training in Pensacola, Fla., said base spokesman Todd Willebrand. Young apparently had left the base Saturday on a 13-hour liberty that sailors receive after boot camp graduation, Willebrand said.

He would not say whether Young returned to the base by 8 p.m. Saturday as required under the training center's rules.

Willebrand also declined to disclose information about the Navy's investigation of the death, but did say that it investigates whenever a recruit dies, even off the base.

"Anytime a service member suffers a fatality, the Navy obviously would investigate to find out what happened," he said.